


I aim to break not one but all

by FancifulRivers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (Lemon drops are bad for your teeth), AU, Gen, Good Severus Snape, Grey Voldemort, I swear that Harry is not a Lord of anything and politics don't really feature, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Memory Charms, Perhaps Horcruxes were a bad idea, Set in the summer after third year, magical coercion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-05-27 11:56:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15024083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: Hermione learns of the Headmaster's plans for her best friend, Harry.





	1. Chapter 1

She remembers on a cold, rainy night in early July. In retrospect, Hermione Granger is relieved that her parents are gone, seeing a new movie in the cinema. She declined because romantic dramas hold no interest for her, but now she wonders if perhaps she had an inkling this might happen.

She's known something is wrong in her mind for months. For endless weeks, she has probed and probed at it, like a tongue flicking over a sore tooth. Her mind is tired of her meddling. That is all she has time to think before something cracks, almost audibly, and noisome mental fluid spills out, coating all her thoughts with poison and memories, leaving her panting in the middle of her bedroom. When she calms down eons later, she realises it looks like a tornado has confined itself to her room. 

She has questioned since first year whether the Headmaster truly has all of his students' best interests in mind. It is hard to believe when you stack up the troll situation, the Cerberus located in the third floor corridor, and most damning, the trials at the end of the year that a trio of first years are able to overcome. She knows that she is smart, Harry is resourceful, and Ron is cleverer than he gives himself credit for, but they are no match against adult witches and wizards. It is a test- but she was not allowed to keep that train of thought, was she? Her head hurts.

Professor Minerva McGonagall was the witch who arrived soon after Hermione's eleventh birthday to tell her that magic is real and to convince her wary Muggle parents to send their pre-teen daughter to a boarding school in Scotland. But- Hermione's brow wrinkles as she clasps her hands in her lap, desperately willing their trembling to subside.

A week later, the Headmaster himself knocked on the door. He told her parents that Minerva had neglected to leave Hermione with certain reading materials for Muggleborns, but now that Hermione questions it, the excuse is flimsy and paper-thin. If the Deputy Headmistress has no time to drop off the thin satchel of books, then the  _Headmaster himself_ has still less. She thinks her parents wanted to question him anyway, but a strange blankness settled over their faces and all too soon, he had been ensconced in their kitchen, door firmly locked and Hermione's beaming, eleven-year-old face staring in awe up at him.

"You're a special girl," he told her, with twinkling eyes. "If you want- I have a special job for you to do. I don't think anyone else can do it-"

Now, she cringes at the ham-fisted manipulation. But at eleven, with no friends to speak of and desperate to believe there is something, anything, special about her, of course Hermione soaked it up like a sponge.

Make friends with Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Guide him- Dumbledore showed her an example of one of the books he wanted her to read. Hermione doesn't think that any of her professors  _now_ would allow her to read it. Why had he allowed a scarcely-turned-eleven-year-old child to do so? Help him stay on the right path. Hermione knows what that means, she always has. The concept of the straight and narrow is a valid one in the Muggle world, too, after all.

"I'm not good at making friends," she admitted painfully, staring down at the whorls in the kitchen table. A long, wizened finger tipped her chin up and the Headmaster promised that he'd help her. How could she refuse?

_I should have-_ Hermione thinks, scarcely aware of the tears drying on her cheeks. She has her knuckles trapped in her mouth, the indentations of her teeth barely registering as pain. Now that her mind has released itself from the prison the Headmaster has imposed upon it, it wants to tell her everything, to expose everything. She curls up in the middle of her bed, hugging a pillow to her stomach.

The troll at Halloween- Quirrell let it in, but Dumbledore adjusted the wards. He was tired of her inability to make friends, weary of her spouting off facts and figures like it would win her anything but scorn. She doesn't know if Harry genuinely  _wanted_ to come after her, or if he had somehow been coerced to, but the end result was the same, wasn't it?

The careful, circuitous route to the Philosopher's Stone. Nicolas Flamel. Secret meetings in Dumbledore's office where he lambasted her one moment and praised her the next. Did he have similar meetings with Ron? If he did, he hid them as assiduously as he did her own.

The Chamber of Secrets. She ended up  _Petrified_ , for Merlin's sake. Her tears start to dry up at that chilling realisation. She could have  _died_. She read about basilisks- she's kept up on that reading, unable to stay away after the events in second year. It is a miracle she only met those lamplight-yellow eyes in a mirror. Even Harry nearly died, struggling and pinned at the end of a poison-seeping basilisk fang. She wonders if Fawkes is in on it. If a phoenix  _can_ be. 

Sirius Black and now Hermione knows there is no way that Dumbledore didn't  _already_ know the man is innocent. He never received a bloody trial. He should have. It is Dumbledore's fault that he did not. She remembers researching that now, remembers looking in the Headmaster's eyes and the knowledge oozing away until it wasn't there anymore.

Her hand slips around her neck and she clutches her Time Turner. She hasn't turned it in yet. She asked Professor McGonagall if she could postpone her decision until the beginning of the next school year and considering her grades, her professor agreed. She wonders if she will even be allowed to turn it in. If she even wants to.

Her brain hurts, stuffed to the brim with new information and old. She has spent more nights than she wants to think about, practicising spells that she  _shouldn't be able to_ , not living in the centre of a Muggle neighbourhood like she does, the way she has slipped out of the house and made her way into the wizarding shopping districts, glamours spread across her too-young face, buying books she doesn't know with money that's not hers. She remembers when Dumbledore visited her, telling her that she needs to learn, she'll be behind, Muggle primary school is unimportant (thankfully, her parents have drilled too much sense into her head for that to stick). 

He took the Trace off her wand.

But- she squints at her wand. She can only vaguely see it now, and that's because she's already seen it. A sickly grey film coats her wand instead, ensuring that the Headmaster knows every spell and movement she ever uses. Her stomach roils and she barely makes it to the bathroom before she's heaving into the basin, trying her best to hold back bushy masses of hair.

When she's finished, Hermione squats back on her heels and takes a few fortifying breaths through her nose. First things first. She will clean up her room. She will greet her parents like nothing out of the ordinary happened at all while they were gone.

Then she will, using a perfectly Muggle notepad and pen, make a list of the things she wants to do, to rid herself and Harry Potter of Albus Dumbledore's control.

The first step, of course, is contacting Harry.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione sits in the middle of her re-made bed, familiar ballpoint pen cap clacking against her teeth. She wonders briefly what her parents will think, seeing her with Muggle pen and paper. She's been so insistent on using parchment and quill for the past three years that now she wonders what her school supplies are laced with, too. Can she buy all new ones? Is her own money tainted? But how could she even explain needing all new equipment to her parents, when her own things are obviously still whole? Her parents aren't poor, but that doesn't mean it would be easy for them to replace so much.

She shakes her head. It doesn't matter right now. What matters is what she, a fourteen-year-old girl, can do against a man who holds the wizarding world in his wrinkled, old palms, watched over by twinkling blue eyes. She knows all of his titles, she's seen his power. The only person she can think of who's tried to go against him is You Know Who and she certainly doesn't want to attempt seeking  _him_ out. If he's even still around. She'd be a "dead Mudblood" faster than she can blink.

Is Ron trustworthy? Hermione contemplates, scribbling a few notes in shorthand. When she was nine, she learned shorthand on her own because her hands kept cramping from all the notes she took in school. It certainly comes in handy, as she doubts the Headmaster knows Muggle shorthand. Knows  _anything_ Muggle, beyond perhaps their assortment of sweets.

She has a hard time believing that Ron could be duplicitous. He is short-tempered and she knows that he has an unhealthy obsession with Harry's fame, but that doesn't mean it's his fault. The Weasleys are also desperately poor and with so many children to feed... Hermione bites her lip. Could Dumbledore control them with money? Promise to pay for Ron's and Ginny's education if they do as Dumbledore demands? She can't see why Percy or the twins would be involved, as they've certainly never been close to Harry. The twins prank him (or help him prank other people, once or twice) and that's about it. Percy's just a... well, a prat is the first word that comes to mind, but he's not. He's just overly studious and overly stuffy and altogether, Hermione thinks that Percy is the male version of what her future was going to be.

She's kind of glad it's changed, even if she hates the circumstances.

It's right after her parents go to bed that she starts to feel the pull. She's felt it before, but she's never questioned it, only drifted out of the house as quietly as she dared, her wand up her sleeve and her knees shaking.

She doesn't think that she can get away from whatever it might be this time. It might tip off the Headmaster, and when she is so newly cracked and vulnerable to the events of the past several years, she thinks that would be disastrous.

So she dresses as warmly as she dares, for the night is still cold, and tiptoes down the stairs and out the front door, making sure her key is in her pocket. She knows better than to brandish her wand, but her fingers itch for it anyway.

This time, her feet take her toward the park at the end of the road. She stares at the pavement, afraid that if she looks up, she will meet Dumbledore's eyes and he will know.

"Miss Granger?"

It is worse. 

Hermione reluctantly raises her gaze to meet the blank, glazed eyes of her Head of House, Minerva McGonagall.

"Sit," Minerva says, patting the swing next to her. Hermione does, the seat creaking under her weight. She holds onto the chains with sweaty fingers, despite the coolness of the air. "Albus wants you to go to Diagon Alley this weekend."

"All right," Hermione says, attempting to mimic the dull tone she's heard over and over in her newly shattered memories. It seems to work, as Professor McGonagall doesn't look like she notices anything is amiss.

"Here," and Minerva passes her a tiny roll of parchment. Hermione can feel the sticky grey film on it, but she has no choice but to accept it and thrust it into her jeans pocket. "You are to buy these books with your allowance and use glamour number five. You know where to go."

"Yes," she acknowledges. It is sickening to hear this spill from her professor's lips, but it is worse to see that emptiness in Minerva's eyes, to know that she is being compelled to do this, too. If even she can be affected, how does Hermione have any hope of getting Harry free?

"Have a good night, Miss Granger." Minerva rises to her feet, striding off into the night before Hermione can respond.

It is chance that Hermione sees it, a scrap of parchment tucked into the chains of Professor McGonagall's swing. She pulls it free, unrolling it to see her Transfiguration professor's tidy script.

_Be careful._

Despite herself, Hermione smiles as she re-traces her steps toward home.


	3. Chapter 3

The glamour makes her face itch and Hermione has to fight the urge to scratch her nose as the pimply-faced sales clerk gathers the books on Dumbledore's list. She feels like she should be surprised she's in Knockturn again, but she's not. The choice of glamour Professor McGonagall passed on has seen to that. Instead of a bushy-haired, slightly buck-teethed upcoming fourth-year, she now looks like a woman in her early twenties, with straight, dirty blonde hair and a lot of freckles. Thankfully, they don't make her look like a Weasley. She had to borrow some of her mum's clothes and unfold a resized robe from the bottom of her trunk to do this in the first place.

"Done," the clerk announces. Hermione's nose itches again and she lets her upper lip fold into a sneer as a subtle way to scratch it while she drops the requisite amount of Galleons onto the counter.

"About time," she says in a scratchy voice. It is the only way that she can make herself sound not like herself, so instead she wanders around, sounding like she has a head cold. The clerk doesn't seem to notice anything wrong, though, just shoves the bag at her. She taps it briskly with her wand, shrinking it and tucking it into one of her inner robe pockets. There are anti-theft charms woven into every inch of this robe, and she quietly appreciates them.

On the way out, she nearly bumps into Lucius Malfoy and has to stare at the ground to avoid him noticing the spark of recognition in her newly blue eyes. He's brought Draco along and the pompous little prick is prattling on about everything and nothing. A good hex would-

Attract attention, her brain reminds her. For once, whatever Dumbledore has done to her works in her favour, letting her calm down and shove those emotions to the back of her mind, ready to be dealt with later.

These books, while still horribly inappropriate for a fourteen-year-old Muggleborn to be reading, are for  _her_ , not for him to pick up later, which makes Hermione feel marginally calmer. If her mind can be trusted  (and it's hard to believe that's even possible), he tends to leave her alone during the summer, until she ends up at the Burrow with Harry.

She knows that she should just go home now. Wearing a glamour is exhausting, even with the little enchantments Dumbledore has added to her clothing to ease the way, and it is awkward to traverse the world in a body that doesn't feel like hers. But she doesn't get a chance to be free like this (if you can call it freedom) often and-

Hermione ducks into the poky little wand shop before she can change her mind. The woman dusting the corners looks up, surprised.

"You wanna wand?" She asks in a reedy voice. "Best place for one."

"Naturally," Hermione says, stuffing down the buzz of nerves. "I have one already, but it is-" She scrunches her nose. "Unsuited to me."

"Ah," the woman says, nodding in a way that Hermione thinks is meant to be understanding. "I know how that is, come on then."

Before Hermione quite realises what's going on, she's stood on a tiny stool in the corner of the shop, waving wands until she thinks her arm might fall off. No matter what effects happen, the old woman just cackles and hands her another wand.

Until finally, warmth illuminates her from the inside out and a cascade of golden sparks showers over her head. She pauses, mouth hanging open. Not even her Ollivander-issued wand reacted to her like  _that_.

"Perfect," the woman says, smug satisfaction playing on her lips. "Ten Galleons, please."

"Robbery," Hermione protests, but she pays it anyway, because there's no way she's leaving this establishment without the wand that already feels like an extension of her arm. "What's it made of?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out," the proprietor says, tapping the side of her nose.

"But I-" Hermione starts to argue, but the woman just shakes her head.

"Helps you get to know your wand," she explains. "If you still can't get it after a month, I'll help, alright? Just come back, I'm here most any time. But I gotta feeling you'll know." She grins, exposing yellowing teeth.

"I'll do my best," Hermione admits. It hurts in a way, to hide that wand away (and isn't it awkward hoisting up her robes in the corner and shoving it down her mum's trousers, but she doesn't want it to even touch the cloth that Dumbledore has despoiled), but she knows it's for the best.

"I've got the best wands in London," the old woman calls after her. "You tell 'em!"

"I will," Hermione promises. A quick look in another Knockturn bookshop to add to her collection (she adds several on mental magic, including Legilimency and Occlumency, as they seem promising places to start), and she is off home, wand and bookbag stuffed in her trousers and Dumbledore's purchase in her adult-sized robes. It is easy to slip back into the Granger household, and a relief to release the glamour and shrug out of the robes, bundling them back into the bottom of her trunk.

Staring at her new wand with wide eyes, Hermione wonders.

Is it free of the Trace, as well?


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione takes a deep breath. Nerves make her hands shake. She stands in a small clump of trees in the same park her Transfiguration professor met her not that long ago. The sun is starting to set, streaking the sky red and orange. It makes her think of blood and nausea roars briefly.

Her first wand sits at home, nestled in her trunk. Her new wand, the one she procured from Knockturn Alley, knocks against her hip with every movement. She's not sure what spell she wants to try yet. Something small, childish, innocuous. Like a first year might try. She doesn't think there's any way to connect this wand with Hermione Jean Granger, but she doesn't want to take the chance anyway.

The last shouts of the children playing there die away and Hermione takes another deep breath. She plans to cast the spell, climb a tree, and wait. If it sets off any alarm, then someone will appear, won't they? Dumbledore said so, back in her first year, when he explained that things would be different for her. That he would "fix" things for her. 

" _Wingardium Leviosa,_ " she whispers, pointing her new wand at a nearby forgotten ball. It hovers obediently in the air and she laughs to herself, remembering that first disastrous Charms lesson, when she'd done it so well, but angered Ron in the process. He still didn't do well with failure, but now Hermione knows how to ignore him.

She flicks her wand to end the spell, shoving it back into her trousers, and climbs the nearest tree. It's more difficult than she expected it would be- she is winded by the time she makes it to an acceptable height- and she disparages her lack of fitness. One would think after all the near-death escapes she's had, she would be more in shape.

Still. She is safely up a tree, hidden by the shadows of the leaves, and there is no one in sight. Her heart throbs in her throat, an anxious pulse point beating a staccato tattoo. The implications of a safe, Trace-less wand are staggering. She can do whatever she wants.  _Truly_ whatever she wants, and not even the Headmaster will know. The thought is a heady one and Hermione has to shake her head, gripping the tree trunk harder to keep herself grounded. She doesn't  _know_ yet.

Nobody appears. She waits nearly an hour to be safe. Only the threat of her legs falling completely asleep coaxes her down from the tree. Once her feet touch the ground, she is briefly afraid a stranger will leap from the bushes, Apparate her to the Ministry for what she's done.

There is nothing. She laughs shakily and hurries home.

Hermione repeats the experiment five more times at different times, in different places, and with different (yet still appropriately first year-approximate) spells. The results are the same.

She grins, suddenly and fiercely.

"Mum?" She asks the next day, padding into the kitchen. Her mum looks up from a cup of tea she's been nursing and a book.

"Yes, dear?" Mrs. Granger asks.

"I want to learn how to sew," Hermione says. Her cheeks stain red under her mother's surprised scrutiny, but it's the only thing that she can think of, as she dare not trust her 'regular' wand holster. Sometimes Muggle ways are best.

Her mum's smile blooms across her face.

"Of course," she says.

Her mother is rusty herself- there is not a lot of down time when you are a successful dentist- but she remembers enough to teach Hermione the basics and Hermione can take it from there. There are books on sewing, after all. But she likes spending this time with her mother, too, sitting companionably in the living room with a basket of thread between them, talking about the neighbours and funny little stories from her parents' dental practice. She trots out carefully edited gems of her times at Hogwarts and her stomach doesn't even twinge to talk about them.

Her first wand holster is a clumsy thing, made of felt, but she still feels powerful when she settles it along her trouser seam and her new wand fits. She wants an arm one, to match her now-tainted holster, but that is for later. For now, this is enough.

She researches wands, too, flicking through pages of the books she already owns. She is enough of a bookworm that she can always explain this, if she must. She thinks that the wood in her new wand is black walnut. It is rarer than walnut wands, and it's shockingly different from her current wand of vine. It feels right in her hand, though, and even if Hermione is not sure that she is a person of "good instincts and powerful insight," she'd like to try.

The core is trickier. It's not like she can  _see_ it, after all. The only way she can properly see it is if the wand breaks, and that would be a disaster. She has no desire to go back with a tattered or chipped wand, a la Ron's Whomping Willow incident. 

In the end, she resorts to sitting in the middle of her closet, holding the wand firmly in her wand hand, while she reads aloud different wand cores and their descriptions, waiting to see if anything happens.

When magic sparks through her fingertips, Hermione nearly drops her wand in surprise. It is one of the three cores that Ollivander uses, so it shouldn't be that much of a shock, but to learn that her new wand shares a core with Harry  _is_. Phoenix feathers are rare to come by, after all, and she knows that Fawkes cannot be the owner of the one residing in her wand. ( _That_ is a relief, the idea of sharing a brother wand with You Know Who is abhorrent.)

"Black walnut and phoenix feather," Hermione says to herself. It feels  _right_. She's not sure of the exact length (and not bothered enough to search out a ruler). It's reasonably pliant and responsive beneath her fingers. It's perfect.

It's going to help her save Harry. Of that, she has no doubt.

And speaking of Harry...

Living in the Muggle world has its advantages, she thinks. She has no desire to trust any sort of missive to Harry to an owl. Hedwig is darling, but she has no proof the poor bird isn't also under some sort of spell. She  _would_ use Muggle post, but she's heard enough about the Dursleys to know that will only end in pain- for Harry.

No, if she wants to get Harry, her best bet is going to Little Whinging, Surrey herself.

And that's exactly what Hermione plans to do.


	5. Chapter 5

Hermione's nose scrunches as she steps out of the car. Harry's neighbourhood is dreadfully dull, full of cookie cutter houses and perfectly manicured lawns. From what he's let slip of his family, it's the kind of place that suits them to a tee. All about appearances and nothing of substance.

"Thanks, Mum," she says.

"I'll pick you up at the park," her mother says. She looks anxious, tapping a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel. It's lucky she's off for the weekend, or Hermione doesn't know what she'd do. She can't wait until the Burrow to talk to Harry. It'd be a disaster.

Hermione strides up the sidewalk, but she has no intention of rapping on the door and asking after Harry. In the summer heat, he's bound to be outside, knowing his relatives. Maybe he can slip away for a bit.

He  _is_ outside, Hermione notices with relief. He's squatting on his heels in the garden, covered in dirt and face steadily reddening. He's wearing his cousin's dreadfully oversized clothes again and Hermione's heart twinges. It's not  _fair_ , she knows her parents would take him on in a heartbeat-

But Dumbledore won't let them. "It's not safe," he claims, and who are two Muggles to argue with a wizard? Harry's well-being is, of course, not factored in.

"Hermione?" Harry asks in surprise when her shadow falls over him. "What are you doing here? You- Aunt Petunia can't see you-"

"I need to talk to you," she says in as calm a voice as she can manage. Her heart feels like a triphammer. "Is there any way you can get away? Maybe to the park? I saw one a few blocks back."

"I- maybe," he says, scrubbing a hand through his sweaty hair. "I told them about Sirius," he admits in a mumble. "Only...I didn't say he was innocent."

Hermione hides a laugh behind her hand.

"They deserve it," she says fiercely. "But seriously- can you?"

"Give me a mo'," he says, plucking up his gardening tools. The flowers look amazing and she tells him so. He grins.

"Thanks," he says. "Aunt Petunia gets a lot of awards for them."

He's back in less time than Hermione expected. Shadows swarm in his eyes, but he still smiles at her.

"Let's go," he says.

Hermione swallows, feeling the weight of her new wand against her leg. She left her tainted one at home. Dumbledore doesn't need to know that she's here. He  _can't_ know that she's here, or she'll be over before she's started. There's no way the Headmaster will let her keep this information and if she's truly unlucky, he'll decide that he doesn't need her at all. The basilisk is a stark reminder that she is nothing but a pawn, and pawns can be thrown away.

"So erm-" Harry starts. His face is very sweaty and he rubs it away with the palm of one grubby hand. It leaves more dirt smudges, but she doesn't tell him. She likes to think that she's grown up a bit from that bossy eleven-year-old on the train. "What's this about?"

Hermione bit her lip. Now that she's here, she realises that she actually has no idea what to say. How does she make him believe her?

"Are you ever-" She starts, then huffs. A new thought has occurred to her and her heart sinks. Harry is the  _Boy Who Lived_. Dumbledore  _can't_ just have him living in his relatives' home with no watch, can he? What if Harry slipped off the leash? What if-

"No one's watching me, if that's what you mean," Harry says carefully, accidentally guessing at her fears, though not what she was about to say. "I think they got bored and left."

"How long do you think until they're back?" Hermione asks, studying his face. They've reached the shade of the park, and the foliage throws his features into shadow.

"A while?" He says. "I dunno, why, Hermione, what is-"

"Good," she says. She sits in the grass, against a bush, and carefully withdraws her new wand. Harry's eyes widen, then narrow in puzzlement.

"That's not-" he starts, but she flicks it, surrounding them in a bubble of privacy.

"Sit down," she says calmly. 

After a long moment of contemplation, Harry does.


End file.
